St. Casimir’s parish was established in 1890 as a derivative of the Polish St. Adalbert’s parish. The parish was organized by Fr. Franciszek Król, and most of his congregation worked in the dynamically developing local manufacturing plants, such as Malleable Works, McCormick Works, Hollendback Sausage Co., Hart Schaffner Marx and Kuppenheimer Clothes. The development of the district was also guaranteed by a railroad line, which since 1902 enabled a good connection with the centre of Chicago. The Poles who settled in this part of the Windy City built beautiful large houses in attractive locations, including Marshal Boulevard and Troy Street, in the so-called Gold Coast. Some of these impressive buildings have survived to this day.

The initial moment for the establishment of the new parish was in 1890. A wooden building was purchased, where a chapel was set up on the ground floor and two classrooms on the first floor; the building also contained rooms for the priests. In 1893 the parish already comprised 300 families. In 1894, when Father Wojciech Furman became the parish priest, the first presbytery was built and a brick house was purchased to house the nuns running the school.

Due to the increasing number of parishioners it became necessary to erect a large multifunctional building. On September 4, 1904 Bishop Peter James Muldoon consecrated the cornerstone, and on June 11, 1905 the building designed by Joseph Molitor was officially opened. It housed the church, the school and rooms for the nuns from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Resurrection, who in the meantime had taken over the management of the school.

In 1910, when the number of families of St. Casimir’s parish exceeded two thousand, it became clear to everyone that it was necessary to build a large church. Having secured the funds, Fr. Furman began the construction in 1917. The cornerstone was consecrated on September 9, 1917, and the first Holy Mass was celebrated on Christmas 1918, even though the temple was not dedicated by Archbishop Georg W. Mundelein until 1919. Ten years later the community of St. Casimir’s amounted to more than three thousand families, so a new parish was derived from it and dedicated to St. Roman.

In 1990 the parish of St. Casimir was merged with the Czech parish of St. Ludmila, due to the decrease in the number of the faithful and the settling of emigrants from Latin America in the district, clearly observed since the 1960s. The church was then given a new dedication – Our Lady of Tepeyac, referring to the most important Marian sanctuary of America (Guadalupe, Mexico). At that time, pastoral ministry in Spanish was introduced, although it should be added that until 2005 a Mass in Polish was celebrated in the church every Sunday.

The spiritual life of St. Casimir’s parish is evidenced by the fact that two bishops originate from it: Stanislaus Wincenty Bona, who was the parish priest of the church from 1922 and received episcopal ordination in 1931, and Thomas Paprocki, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago since 2003 and the bishop of the Diocese of Springfield (the capital of Illinois) since 2010. Among the inhabitants of St. Casimir’s parish there were also volunteer soldiers fighting in the First World War; those who died were commemorated with a metal plaque which can be seen in the porch of the church to this day.

The two-tower church of St. Casimir, with the capacity of 1,500 seats, was designed by the USA-recognized architectural studio Worthmann & Steinbach, active since 1903 and organized by a German and an Austrian. The originality of the church lies in the use of an octagonal plan with semicircular chapels at the front and a protruding, rectangular chancel, closed with a sacristy and a utility room. The main body is covered with an octagonal tented roof topped with a two-story lantern, originally with a marble figure of Christ inside, and the figures of the Evangelists below. In 1925 all of the statues were removed for fear of damaging the structure of the building, which was not adapted to such heavy loads.

The spacious interior of the church was covered with a vault suggesting a dome, with sculptural figures of seraphim blowing trumpets in its corners, and the painted images of the Evangelists above. This space, according to the ancient tradition, symbolized the sky in which God the Father resides. Nowadays, the bottom of the ridge turret is filled with an abstract, multicolored, contemporary stained-glass window. It cannot be ruled out that originally it was white, which complemented the symbolism of God as light. 

The interior of the temple delights with excellent wood carved altars, complemented with multi-colored figural mosaic, as well as marble or white stucco sculptures. The main altar used to feature a mosaic representation of St. Casimir, which in 1990 was transferred to the office of the Vicariate of the Fourth Archbishopric of Chicago. Today, the altar contains a painting of the Mother of God of Guadalupe.

Moreover, the interior features sculptural groups (Christ in the Garden and Our Lady with St. Dominic) made of white stucco imitating marble. These and other figures were made by the Daprato Statuary Company, which was founded in Chicago in 1860 by the Daprato brothers from Tuscany. It still exists today, specializing in interior decoration of temples.

However, it is not known which factory made the multicolored stained-glass windows telling the story of Christ’s life. Moreover, the sacristy of the temple still contains the original furniture and a lavabo, as well as liturgical vessels donated by the Polish community. One of the chalices has an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa on its foot, and the historicized monstrance contains the following dedication: “Christmas gift to St. Casimir’s Church in Chicago – 1898 [from] the court of St. Casimir”. Another valuable feature is the suit of liturgical robes, which after 1926, i.e. at the time of Fr. Bona’s priesthood, was purchased from the Parisian workshop of the Biais family, the origins of which date back to 1782.

Chronology

1890 - erection of the parish of St. Casimir

1891 - opening of a school run by the franciscan sisters and later by the sisters of the resurrection

1904-1905 - construction of a multifunctional parish building

1917 - laying the cornerstone for the church

1919 - dedication of the church

1924 - construction of a convent for nuns

1927 - construction of a new school

1937 - construction of a new presbytery

1946 - school fire

1990 - the merger of the parishes of St. Casimir and St. Ludmila, and the new dedication of the church – Our Lady of Tepeyac

Text originally published in a book issued by the POLONIKA Institute.
Katarzyna Chrudzimska-Uhera, Anna Sylwia Czyż, Jacek Gołębiowski, Bartłomiej Gutowski, Polish parishes and churches in Chicago, Warszawa 2019, pp. 153-161.